Just some arithmatic

Date	Total	In Combat
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03):	2701	2198
Since "Mission Accomplished":(5/1/03)	2564	2099
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03):	2234	1891
Since Handover (6/29/04):	1835	1566
Since Election (1/31/05):	1265	1081

A war poem follows:

4.6875 * 3.5 = 16.40625 (Number of meters we'll need for Iraq, thus far)
75 / 16 = 4.6875 (Number of meters per year of vietnam war in DC memorial)
750 / 3 625 = 0.206896552 (We're killin' 'em [our] @ 20% the rate of before)
750 * 16 = 12 000 (Estimated number of dead if Iraq is as long as Vietnam)
2 701 / 3.6 = 750.277778 (total # of US dead in Iraq divided by time in Iraq)
58 000 / 16 = 3 625 (Total number of dead averaged out per year)
1 975 - 1 959 = 16 (length of time US was involved in Vietnam)

...and in the end, there are 3 kinds of lies: Lies | [Damned]Lies | Statistics...

Which one has been remembered?

More accurately, forgotten?

-L

For Armand F. Capanna II

You said you needed fast architectures, angular weight, something made from blue collared hands. Chiding, maybe even presumptuous, to think it's better down town in the throw of giants. Pace is set along the line of intersecting plans, maps and more ways to the heart. If it rises, it shrinks, it if rises, if it rose. Tempo now my dear, that moves allegro ab aeterno. The sodium night never sleeps and sleep isn't about rest but taking time out of time. Cocktails have their hour and oh so small a humble bacchanal, they never last the story. Narrative and the vertical import constructs rate higher than trees, where green is a minority, it'll lift you from the gutter to the stars if you can get past the doorman. Testament to time and steady hands to want like babel the world in the word.


---L. Shneyder

Global Lens Update

The Global Lens Film Initiative is a roving cornucopia of cinematic delight from all over the world. The idea is that film happens in even the most rural corners of human civilization and that it all should have a chance at a wider audience. Different theatres are selected for "FREE" you heard me, FREE!!!! screenings of Global Lens features. Last night The Balboa Theatre was the site for the screen of two films: Max & Mona (South Africa) & Border Cafe (or Transit Cafe - Iran).



I saw the latter of the two movies, hoping to keep the oriental pleasure I'd been having at the Arab Film Festival. To put it lightly, Transit Cafe did not dissapoint in the least. John Cleary is fond of saying that Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan is one of the few feminist novels to come out of the middle east. I'm not sure if that's true, I haven't read quite enough middle eastern or Arab literature to say if that's true or not, I do agree with him though on the notion that its a very powerful work of feminism, but not traditionally speaking. It has that subtlety that is eviden tin Maralyn Robinson's Housekeeping where you have to look between the lines in order to find that which doesn't fit in with the normal definition of feminism, and the feminism that is discussed in the book is more than just the book's focus on a family of three women. If we take Carol Gilligan's definitions of gender as being based on a certain value inherant in relationships (men define their space by establishing their own families and breaking with the past, in the sense of children, the rule set is more important than personal feelings, while in women its about personal feeling and the preservation of relationships), then Robinson's book is incredibly feminist, or maybe feminine in that it is about saving those very tender and tenuous relationships when you're at the absolute fringe of sanity and society.

Reyhan is a woman caught in the world of Sharia law. She lives on the Iranian border with Syria. Her husband owned a cafe before his death. According to tribal law she is supposed to marry her brother inlaw and to join his family so she can be looked after. There are two things satisfied here, 1) family honor in that family takes care of its own, 2) established tradition and saving face for the dead, so that his wife doesn't shame his memory. Reyhan isn't from this area, nor does she have any intention of marrying Nasser as wife #2. Defying his wishes, and he is somewhat diplomatic at first, she reopens the cafe and fills it with a domestic hospitality that brings to mind the hospitality of the Phoecians to Odysseus in Homer.

Reyhan takes in a young Russian girl running away from the war, which war isn't stated, but I'm assuming its Chechneya, who is 19, has lost her sister and is trying to make it to Italy. Neither woman speaks the other's language, and there atender scenes of them crying on each other's shoulder, and there is this innate understanding. Here I have to bring in a personal story, as it fits, it just does. When we were emmigrating from Russia we lived in Ladispole in Italy, a way station of emigres awaiting final marching papers to the country that would take them. We lived with an Italian family, my grandmother doesn't speak a word of Italian, nor English for that matter, and the family we stayed with spoke no Russian, yet she, my grandmother, would tell my mother stories about the lives of the family, as she and the mother of this Italian family would spend countless hours on the roof top doing laundry. My memory from that roof top was a garden full of tomatoes.

So Reyhan is a rebel in the purest sense. She is defying tradition, which somtimes trumps the written law, but the law here is Sharia, and according to Sharia she is only entitled to 1/8 th of the inheritance, the smallest share, because her husband left no will. The lion's share of the inheratance and the rights to the property of her cafe belong to Nasser. Eventually, Nasser's diplomacy runs out and he takes her to court. The cafe is closed and she is left on her own. Throughout this there are numerous subplots, and the story is partially told through a kind of "remembering" and "witness" to the magic of this border cafe through the eyes of the young Russian girl and Zakario a Greek Trucker who falls in love with Reyhan who turns down his kind offer of taking her and her two girls out of there. There is a mystic quality to the food and the scenes of her cooking, chopping vegetables, grilling eggplants and potatoes, plates of steaming basmati rice in safron with heaps of lamb. The film fits into that long tradition of "foodie" cinema punctuated by such gems as Big Night, Babbette's Feast, The Dinner Party, Mystic Pizza, Chocolate, Water For Chocolate, Eat Drink Man Woman, Fried Green Tomatoes, Vatel and maybe even, well this is because I find the perversity of this film delightful, The Cook The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover.

I checked Netflix, its not available yet, but when it becomes available, you must rent it. Its a delightful film with moments of hilarity and a subtle approach to something that women in more countries than Iraq face, the right to be self sufficient and make decisions for their well being. Not only the right, but the means with which to make it happen.

This isn't good, but I'll post it anyway...

Reading and trying to make sense of Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality in conjunction with James's writings on Pychology, and a few other demons at the trough. Writing assignment... from last week, seemed more appropriate with this week's material. Write a poem with a kind of formalism sonically or otherwise, see. Marianne Moore's formalism if you need examples, or Gertrude Stein's sonic scapes. Or write a poem with a sfuficient amount of missing words, as in creating or stiffling language in lieu of silence... So I kind of did both, playfully, and maybe even a little fecetiously.

[untitled]

What is a complex and multi factional action of process proceeds from forthwith following abstraction to external models acting upon the real relies on mirrors making up more complications than can be enumerated exactly or in sufficient error to erode the passing potential palpable to people or entities which aren’t the same thing as eternal gestures genomically gestalting oy gevalting gevalia coffee coronary how apropos to propose poly-amoury to analyze the fit don’t fit front with what it meant to fit falls first the shoe and gravity is genuine indisputable incongruous to grammar which holds that the I’s are dotted and the T’s are seeing solely similar to seen is scene and being seen so you see it follows suit to say that here you sit at a café proper on the promenade de reality averse to verse lyrically expressed purposes valuate volumes of matter made prehension a probable phenomenon fallaciously feel like frowning for now lets settle on its being constituted by becoming in principle processed preambles this aside or on the side of long strides when you start you sure get going going going going going gone.

a complex process with abstraction to external models upon the real complications exactly to erode potential or entities which as eternal gestures coronary to propose the front falls genuine to grammar which solely similar to scene and seen so you see here you sit on reality lyrically expressed made fallaciously like frowning by becoming preambles of long strides you sure get gone.

AFF Update VI - Kiss Me Not On The Eyes (Egypt)

Ahlaam rendered Zach and I completely speechless. We stood outside trying to smoke and say something intelligent about the film. I was busy writing it up in my head and noticing that the line for Kiss Me Not On The Eyes was growing steadily longer and longer. We crushed out our smokes and hopped into the suddenly moving line as they were letting people inside. I think we were both ready for something different, something other than what we had seen as it had filled our senses with a pain and sorrow that wasn't easy to forget or put down. In the sense of the ecstatic theatre, the theatre of Dionysus, that would reach across the stage in its dythyrambic form through the satyr chorus and bring the audience and action of the play into cohesive pathos, well it succeeded, so much so that we forgot how to speak.



Kiss Me Not On The Eyes

The title of the film comes from a piece of Egyptian music that is sung and played during the film. The story is relatively simple and even predictable at times. A young girl, daughter of a famous belly dancer, is chasing her mother's ghost as she studies the dance. She is courted by a young man who she has affection for, but isn't quite sure she's in love with him. Love becomes equated with loss in the sense of posession and the fear of loosing him forces her hand, she agrees to marry. Not surprisingly, once married, her artistry, her dance, becomes a point of contention between her and her new husband who wants to keep her body to himself. She calls herself an artist, he sees her as his wife, the controlling hand of the patriarchal society creates the tension, the necessary tension, to allow Dunia, our dancer and protagonist, the courage to blaze her own trail.

Now that's the core of the story, but its the supporting cast that really set the film apart. Take for instance her friend, a woman and a cab driver who runs what must be the only American Graffitti styled cab in all of Cairo. Then there's the woman who runs the Guest House where the famous poet lives who struggles against the censors to keep 1001 Arabian Nights from being censored. Egypt is a wonderfully complex place, as far as its cinema portrays it. It is a secular goverment that seems to allow its female citizenry more freedome than seen in previous films. Here they run businesses, teach at the university, live what seems more fulfilling lives. Yet, in all of this, a dark spectre stalks the story and characters: excision, or female circumcision. It is estimated that 97% of all Egyptian women are genitally mutilated at a young age. Prescription holds that a young girl is to be excised when she begins to menstruate and this will help her lead a happier and more fulfilling life. The tension and horrific act is at the heart of one of the sub plots of Yasmine, a young girl, with a very old fashioned grandmother that insists on this happening. A woman arrives in a black cloak and the procedure is done at home with nothing more than a razor blade. Its a difficult seen to watch, and on which Dunia finds herself arriving too late to save young Yasmine's body and future happiness: "congratulations" she says to the grandmother, "instead of protecting her, you've made her just like you, her kitchen will forever be cold and not all the spices of the world will bring her cooking to life." This same grandmother had been trying to convince Dunia to have an excision, and that she, the grandmother, had found a doctor who would only cut out a fraction, instead of the whole thing. This part of the world is terribly difficult to understand in a society that seems so forward thinking and alive with art and artistry that may not necessarily be in accordance with sharia.

The old poet/professor plays a significant role in the film. He becomes Dunia's teacher and speaks with her about Arabic love poetry. There is a central problem that seems to be addresses, but that passion, a kind of rapture and suffering because of love is freely written about in lyric and song, but as for passion and love itself, as the poet puts it "we're afraid of it opennly." This poetic tension, as in, aftermath vs. actuality, or real presence vs. assumed pitfall, is almost a modern analogy for the preventions/prescriptions of religious law in attempting to preserve morality, and the ability to live life undaunted according to a universal law of live and let live, and that it may not be a fall from grace, but a more fulfilling way to live. Dunia is hell bent on living as she wants to live. There is a powerfull seen when she says to the committee, as she trys out for a dance competition, I've never seen my body. She sits with her knees pulled to her chin, her toes wrapped in the hem of her skirt, this is her fetal pose where she is safe. As she discovers more and more poetry, listening to the now blind professor, the victim of an attacker wishing to defend Islam and its opponents who would have Egyptian society revel in the immorality of the Arabian nights, Dunia decides to look at her body. She buys a mirror and hangs it near her bed. She undresses out of the shot and then returns to the round mirror wrapped in the bubblewrap that the mirror came in, still modest, but only in so far as the bubble wrapping is the appearance of modesty, and beneath it is a flame that can consume us all as the audience. She peers, she looks, openning the cellular curtain that surrounds her.

Mamhoud, Dunia's husband, becomes more and more strict with her, asking her to put her hair up when she goes out and asking her not to dance anymore. Eventually, as you might've guessed, following Yasmine's excission, a fight with Mamhoud, she flees her own apartment where he is now living, taking Yasmine with her, and winds up in the guest house where the old Professor lives. There she discovers sensuality, a kind of freedom, she dresses in the garb of his lover, the woman who runs the hotel, and enters his room, shaking the man bracelets on her left arm as a kind of familiar notification, because that's what she witnessed one night when they were making love. She steps into the role, breaking all tradition, marital vows, everything, to discover, or more accurately, pursue something taboo, something that sets her blood on fire. Her dance teacher says that there is an equilibrium of the universe when you dance and that equilibrium is present through all the axes of the body from north to south, east to west front and back. It is only then, when she enters the room in garb, and the professor tells her "never dress as another, never disguise yourself, never wear another's makeup" that this seems to become a reality. The axes have realligned themselves because she has begun to live her life according to her own rules, even if she stumbles a bit in a dress that's too long for her.

Its a mesmerizing film. The actress that plays Dunia eats up the screen, as she stamps her foot and turns her body into a liquid interlocuter between heaven and Earth in a sufi like twirl with one arm raised to the heavens and one to the ground. She is a conduit for the narrative and also for tradition and modernity. The gestures of the raised hand and the lowered hand are not unlike the famous Raphael fresco of "The School of Athens" where Plato's finger (the model was Leonardo) is raised to the heaven's in his quest for The Republic, the logos, and Aristotle's hand is outstretched inferring Earth, the land, topos, (Michelangelo was the model for Aristotle), in a dichotomy of representation and ideation, bot present, both important, the polemics defining the spectrum and harmonizing it.


detail from The School of Athens by Raphael, c. 1509

AFF Update V - Ahlaam (Iraq)

Sunday was the close of the 10th Annual Arab Film Festival. I went to see two films with my mate Zach, in Berkeley, and these two were probably the most polished, if not strongest of the entire festival. At least of the ones I've seen. This isn't to take anything away from any of the other wonderful films I've seen, but these two were like gut wrenching kidney blows, or that liver punch that Mike Tyson used to knock people out with, before he took to bitting off ears, and that plays a role in these films believe it or not. We'll do one at a time, starting with the 2pm screening of Ahlaam.



Ahlaam

Picture yourself in a prison. Picture yourself in a hospital. Close your eyes and imagine incarcertaion vs. rehabilitation, picture that clinical white, the machine that goes ping and the clang of bars, the batons and that lack of freedom that is called to be disciplined and punished. Now open your eyes, the image you just had two, melted together, smudged with shit and dirt, is something like the beginnings of the mental institution where 3 people find themselves. Ali is a soldier confined to the mental hospital after he was nearly killed in a US air attack in 1998 as part of operation Desert Fox. Dr. Mehdi is a young doctor fresh from the military service that he was forced to join when his academic career was cut short by his family's past history: you see his father was a communist and was executed for treason. Mehdi isn't a member of the Bath party, and because of his family's traitorous past, can't continue up the chain, so he joins the aramy. The last, Ahlaam, is a young literature student, who walks her cell still wearing the wedding dress she was in the day the secret police came and stole her fiance as they were about to wed.

The film starts off in the moment, in the moment of 2003, of the mental hospital, Ali is almost unrecognizeable as a guant figure cowering the corner, a bearded gollum. Ahlaam in her dress and Dr. mehdi running about. Cut to black, back up, start again, tell the story, flesh out the characters, show the world as it was in 1998 under Sadaam. The story is different, Ali is walking down the street, a respected soldier heading back up north to his post at the Syrian border. He is generous and gives money to beggers. On a ferry crossing at the Tigris river the ferry man doesn't want to take his money. The respect he commands is somewhat overwhelming.

In 1998 Mehdi was a promising and over achieving med student who passes his finals and dreams of doing a master's degree. His over protective mother says "Son, don't study so much, rest, they say sleeping more and studying less will help you pass the test." As he sits by candle light in his home at a desk the size of a cafateria tray, scribbling in his notebook and reading while smoking cigarettes and burning that midngiht oil. His classmates think highly of him, he has velocity and trajectory in his life, yet his father's crime of communism and subsequent execution forestalls his ascent, and he falls like Icarus into the belly of the military.

Ahlaam is on the brink, on the brink of becoming a wife, of dawning a true Abaya, of becoming a woman in a certain sense. She is the bridge between families, between the future and the past and she finds herself in a mental institution, still wearing a wedding gown for the day that Ahmed will return and make of her a wife. When you see Ahlaam and her short but intense love affair of words and skipping stones with Ahmed you know that mutus mutandis will bring about even greater joy to the families and these two people, albeit arranged, I'm assuming, are genuinely in love.

Everything is in flux and they are all travelling paths that they don't want to be on, but necessity and or the harsh cruel realities of Iraq at that time force their hands. Ali heads up to the Syrian border with his friend Hassan who is openly critical of the regime. Ali quiets him over nad over again, worried about who might be listening, and who could report Hassan. Hassan has one other problem, his hair, its falling out in patches, and he believes all his misfortune to come from his "condition" with his hair. He's something of a Samson without a Delilah. If it weren't for his hair he would be braver, more able to cope with the realities of living in Iraq. When the bus full of soldiers reaches a checkpoint the security officers come on board and check the soldier's papers. Those returning late, or have lost their orders or passes, those with excuses other than what the document says, are removed from the bus, presumeably, never to be heard from again.

Once Ali and Hassan reach the desolte no-man's land of the Syrian-Iraqi border there's not much to do. And then the bombs come, and there's more to do than they are prepared for. US & Great Britian bombs the north. Their camp is hit. Ali is knocked out and shell-shocked, unable to hear. He wakes up bloody and stumbles around finding Hassan badly wounded amidst a litter of soldiers cluthing the stumbs of where limbs used to be yelling for help or an officer, both in short supply. Ali in his shell-shocked delerium picks up Hassan and begins to carry him, looking for a doctor. There's a moment here where you can't help but think back to Malkovich in his very odd role in the film (Der Unhold) The Ogre, where blind, he walks through the front lines with a boy on his shoulders to be his eyes. He stumbles out into the open desert, cross the border, must have crossed back, is wandering for the entire night and part of the next day, still unable to hear, still shocked, and then he's picked up by the security forces, at which point you assume Hassan is dead. He's accused of desertion and thrown in prison. His trial is a mockery of justice and he's to has ear cut off for trechery and cowardice. After this horrific event he's imprisoned in the mental hospital.

The film resumes in the present of its narrative chronology with a cruel head doctor at the mental institution who believes in electro shock therapy, yells at the patients, kicks them, and has about as much mercey as Torquemada. Mehdi is the opposite, he has the penetrating insight to know that Ali isn't mentally insane, but that how you treat a man will determine how that man will live, and how he will appear under such conditions. The cruel head doctor wheels the screaming Ahlaam in for electro shock, and during the delivery of the first round of shocks, the hospital is hit by a bomb.

Its the morning after, 2 days before the regime collapses. Pandomonium is breaking out left and right, people are dying, houses collapsing as a mostly civil society that has lived together under the unflinching rule of the regime, is comming apart at the seems. The patients of the hospital, and here I don't hesitate to call them inmates when you consider the cruelty of their incarceration as in the case of Ali who is more inmate, confined by the state, than true patient, the delusional Ahlaam, committed by her family as she never recovered from that dreadful day. The patients are loose, the hospital is being looted, Ali and Mehdi try to intervene with the looters but find themselves the targets instead of the nussances blockingt he way out of the hospital. Eventually the search parties are organized to retrieve the patients and Ali begins to run around the streets, in nothing but his boxers, barefoot, looking for the patients of the hospital. Ahlaam's parents take to the street wtih a cleric to help them, they walk around showing people her picture, as she wanders seeing her husband in every strange face and shadow. Her dreams and her waking hours are indistinguishable and she suffers for her inability to see clearly. Delusion is a form of escape, and it is also a kind of punishment.

The director, Mohamed Al-Daradji has produced a powerful story based on the lives of three people in this hospital. The story is bleak and shows us the worst of human nature when a sniper opens fire on people in the street. The confusion is evident, the anxiety of quiet moments to be shaken up by bombs is palpable. There isn't an anxiety that isn't explored in this first film since the fall of the regime. Its a brilliant piece of work that understands the beautiful act of giving a naked man a coat, and how that has a resounding sound through so many other "coats" in cinema history, most recently The Pianist and "why the fucking coat?" These small codified messages of the west, intentional or not, make the film a rich, rich presentation of east and west, as the east's fate seems to rest in western hands. The final scenes of the film are exasperating as the family spots Ahlaam just as US soldiers arrive and fighting breaks out, she flees into a building they are barred from entering. "This is what I get for a lifetime of service and obedience, to be knocked to the dirt in my own country?!" cries Ahlaam's mother as she is toppled by a soldier. And up the flights of deserted stairs goes the frightened Ahlaam, lead by voices, muerto voce, the dead speak, and she answers. Finally on the roof, looking out over what Ali earlier called "beautiful Baghdad" the camera pans round and round and round and it ends, at the height of the crecendo, and you find yourself lost for words, unable to speak, unable to make any sense of what you just saw, and equally powerless to forget it.

See it when you can, or it becomes available.

AFF Update IV - Occupation 101 (Palestine)

Last night's screening of Occupation 101 was the 1st sold out show that I attended. I was surprised to be quite honest. I arrived at the Roxie on the early side, early enough for Schwarma and a casual stroll through the stacks at Adobe books where I found a copy of Words from Ends to Ez by Jackson Mac Low. The guy behind the counter thought that it might have some to do with the writings of John Cage. No, this book comes out of a reductive program that was fed Pound's Cantos and then Mac Low carefully culled the poems from the output of the comptuerized processor/randomizer. I don't know that I'm crazy about this book, but its unlike anything else out there. If you want to explore Mac Low then you should get a copy of Bloomsday, I found this book infinitely more digestable than Words from Ends. Now, onto the film...



Occupation 101

Of the three documentaries thus far, this has been the most visually gripping. The Omeish brothers knew their demographic well and present it in such a way that they're sure of keeping the attention of the 18-30 crowd that can be clocked, attention span-wise, by the time it takes for a web page to load on the fastest broadband line. There are plenty of insightful interviews interspersed with footage culled from various sources including Al Jazeera and other news outlets. There are talking heads, there are scenes of gruesom deaths, injured children, poverty, depravity, archival footage from pre 1948 and lots of flash animations and statistics. These are all the elemtns that should be included of a documentary that takes the position of "you don't know whats going on there." In this capacity it can't be faulted, it has a definite agenda and frankly, I think it tells the story well, but not perfectly.

I'm going to try and avoid a complete synopsis of the film, there's just too much information packed into it. The fast MTV-like pace of the movie makes it the equivalent of a page turner, but it operates from the position that everything the western news media tells you is wrong wrong wrong, and or misleading. Is it? The historical background of how the state of Israel was formed, the relative peace that palestine experienced during the 1st half of the 20th century, and even in the 19th, is intersting in terms of the archival footage presented. There is this conception that Jews and Arabs have been fighting since the dawn of time. This isn't at all true. Jews and Arabs occupied the holy land for long periods of time far more peacefully than their Ashkenazi cousins in Europe who were subject to anti-semitic laws and persecutions from one ruler to the next. Still, parts of Europe weren't that bad and Jewdaism flourished in various epochs, from the 11th century mystics of Spain, Spinoza of Portugal in the 17th century and Marx in the 19th. I guess the point I'm trying to make is there are no absolutes. None whatsoever.

However, the film makers present compelling evidence to the absolutes of Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. There are definite undeniables when you consider the past, in terms of Nazis occupation of Europe, the Geneva Convention, which when you think of the Occupied Territories as Occupied, then Geneva clearly states that you can't inhibit a person's freedom of movement, yet that's preceisely what has been happening, from the security wall, which is twice as high as the Berlin wall and longer than its European predecessor, to the way that Settlements in the West Bank cut Palestiniant communities off from each other. The proponents of "seperate but equal" would say dthat its necessary to stem the tide of suicide bombings. The film's answer is two fold: 1)its the last and most desperate act of a people that have little to no other means to resist occupation 2) it doesn't help their cause. The latter sentiment is echoed by Jews, Palestinians and others that're interviewed.

There are other misconcenptions that are attacked direclty and indirectly in the film, from the fact that Palestinians are lazy, well there are no jobs and infrastructure in the territories & they can't leave and work inside of Israel, to how the 1st and 2nd Intifada's began and why. No one really comes out of this documentary clean and unblemished; Israel is made to look like a fascist state that is doing exactly what was done to them in Nazis Germany, America might as well be no different than Iran in its support for Hezbollah, with the way that America supports Israel, and congress has a major lobby in the form AIPAC. There are many parallels that can be drawn between all the players on this field. I don't know, I think the film does what it intended to do, but if its going to be critical of the media, then I would've liked to have sene some criticism of the Arab networks too. Lets face it people, every story has two sides, and in the case of these stories, there are MANY sides, yet the film makers never once mention how bad the media coverage is from the Arab side. Are we to think that they can do no wrong?

You should check out the film for yourself. There are things that can't be denied, there is a human toll that is discussed and shown that you normally don't see. Gaza is the most densly populated place on Earth. How is that not a prison camp? A study of 1000 children done in the Gaza strip showed that the majority of them had lost or were loosing their will to live. There isn't a building in Gaza that isn't riddled with bullet holes. When you examine the numbers of Palestinian dead to Israeli, its rather lopsided. The dollars that support Israel are staggering, as is the the history and unwaivering nature of that support. Lots of small details come out, and together they make a narrative, but its not perfect, and you're going to have to go see it and see fo yourself where the holes in it might or might not be.

AFF Update III - Documentary Night (Iraq & Palestine/Israel)

Following the weekend's heavy selections from Morocco and Algiers I went for the 7-10 split down the middle. There was a double header of two documentaries, the First from Iraq and the second from Iraq & Palestine/Israel. Lets take one at a time and in the order that I saw them, as impression and perception build ontop of one another.



The Blood of My Brother

This piece opens up at the grave of Ra'ad. His younger brother Ibrahim is trying to lead his grieving mother away from the tomb of her deceased eldest son. The back story here is how Ra'ad died: he was shot by accident while guarding a holy shrine in Baghdad. He and a group of other devout men had taken up positions and rotating patrols around a very holy Mosque in Kadhimiya. A passing American patrol mistook him and openned fire. He was killed on the spot. He was unarmed.

This much of the film is pure narrative and doesn't take long in understanding that the killing of Ra'ad is a terrible burden. Similarly to the other two films, which featured absent patriarchs, and male sons that have assumed the role of patriarch and head of the household, Ibrahim is thrust into taking charge of his family and his brother's photography shop at a relatively juvenile age. His brother, Ra'ad, was something of a local legend. He had saved his money to open a photography studio and was well respected and known. The family boasts that 7,000 people show up for his funeral, the death of a Martyr. This is where the details get a little murky.

Now Ra'ad didn't die in an operation, or in the heat of battle, or in the fray of "once more unto the breach", he died guarding a holy Mosque. He is given the same glory as that of one who takes up arms for Jihad, he is deemed a Martyr. The scenes of his funeral are fantastic. People are carrying his image through the streets, his coffin on their shoulders and screaming and decrying his status as a holy Martyr, "Allah is great!" they chant as his corpse travels to the graveyard. It seems that Martyrdom can be bestowed on anyone deemed to be engaged in a socially accepted right action, one that furthers the locally sanctioned ideology, or socio-political intent. Martyrdom is the promse at the end of the road of misery and that of something, which on Iraqi later interview, describes "with my feeble brain I can't do it justice, but its a place not like Earth, with clean water, fresh fruit and maidens."

Ibrahim is a pretty central character in all of this. He has responsibility beyond his capacity while simultaneously coping with the death of his older brother who filled the void of his father. He says that he's ultimately not upset, he's happy that Ra'ad died in the manner that he did and that his family is happy to bury a Martyr for the cause. Which cause, we're not too sure. The neighborhood and Mosque are loyal supporters of the Mehdi Army and Moqtada Al-Sadr, so did he die supporting Moqtada? Did he die as a patriot for his country? Was Ra'ad's death more cloely associated to that of a crusading knight in defense of his small patch of holy land? The easy answer here is all of the above. Death, from what you begin to realize, is a public right and a private virtue. The death of a martyr is a personal honor, while the cause and intent of the death, after death, the life after death, becomes a matter of usurpation. Whoever wants to view that the death was joyous, or that it was in defense of something, or that it was needless, can coopt the martyr's victory, oh yes, lets not get this wrong, it is a victory of sorts, once the tears are gone there is nothing but absolute adoration for the way that Ra'ad died. Is this, like Octavio Paz wrote in Labrynth of Solitude, a people in love with Death? In Paz's pachuco world death is rebirth in the form of Dio De Los Muertos, Death is a positive of sorts and an absolute necessity to understand the solitude of a people that don't have a true sense of their own identity. Are we to think then that Iraqi's only understand themselves as Muslims, in the extreme certainly, as Arabs when they are surrounded by Martyrs and have the opportunity for the same? There's one thing that really makes me curious, how many martyrs were there in the days of Sadaam? Was everyone that perished in his prison, considered in their time and during their death, a martyr?

The documentary, at times, exercises restraint. When the family is being interviewed there are definite cautious approaches by the film makers in the sense of leaving no trace. You don't know they are there, Ibrahim and his family simply talk to the camera. I say this now because its definately not the case in the next film. However, there are other large stretches of the documentary that seem to be "out of place." I'm not sure I needed to see the incursions by Bradley Fighting vehicles and frenzies of people scurrying, and a helicopter shot down, to truly understand this film, and what to me is the story of a family. Was there not enough material, not enough quotidian footage with which to construct how a family grieves? The scenes of the US Military, shake cameras where the cinematographers are running as gunfire erupts, seems like it was meant for another documentary. We understand, they are not grieving in a vaccum, Iraq is happening now as I write this.

Still there's one thing that I find telling, and eye popping, but not surprising. Ibrahim, in one of his candid moments looks at the camera and says "I don't hate Americans, but if when I saw an American or Jew I just want to kill him." Did you get that? His brother was killed by a US Soldier, as to the soldier's religious background its anyone's guess. However, the institutionalized hatred of Jews, a link between the US occupation, the Iraqi struggle against the occupation, a mentality of insurgency is balled up in that one phrase. It's as if Ibrahim's anger at Ra'ad's death is so abundant that he has to lump the Jews in or the whole of America wouldn't be sufficient to account for his brother's slaying. I once heard an interview with an Arab scholar who spoke about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he was Lebonese, and he said "the problem is that they [palestinians] hate the Jews more than they love Palestine." I think Thomas Friedman might have said something similar except he directed it to suicide bombers and changed Palestine to "children". Its not enough to hate just your brother's killer, why is that? Was it that the other hatred was there before? Its a curious statement and can be taken many ways. One thing is certain, this is not just one juvenile's outlook, or how he's lashing out at the unjust murder of his brother, this is an instituional hatred. Does this mean that every Iraqi, or lets just go for the unpopular stance here, every Arab hates the Jews and wishes them destroyed along with the Americans?! No, not in the least! As a matter of fact, this is what I would consider somewhat fringe, and just as there are all manner of people in this world, so are there religious ideologies with which to lead and mislead. If its one thing that this film maker, I think, wants to show us, is that its not only easy, but socially acceptable and even proper to join the resistance in Iraq from the standpoint of social acceptance, fraternity and for religion. The chants of Allah, and the fiery sermons of Sheikh al-Kadhimi in the Mosque interchange with "Allah is great" "There is only one True God" "Moqtada is Great." When politics and religion melt together with "T"ruth pinned down down and indisputably defined both politically and religiously, the outcome can be just as frightening as the complete abolishment of religion in lieu of totalitarian nationalism.

Its not at all the most comfortable film to watch, a lamb is slaughtered similarly to how the cow was slaughtered in Bled Number One, and it leaves you feeling a little queezy from the gitgo. But when you see the hundreds and thousands of men jumping and chanting, that you're dealing with something so powerful, religion, that you're living in the medieval ages and Sala'adin is near. Yes, a powerful film that has its flaws, is sensational at times, propogandist and definately somewhat one-sided, but important to see.



I Know I'm Not Alone

I have to give credit to the organizers of the festival: the juxtaposition of this film with the preeceding one was perfect. We move from an extremely violent and visceral portrayal of life in Iraq under the occupation as spectators caught between armored fighting vehicles and masked gunmen, to a man and his guitar and a bag of jah love trying to make sense of something that granted is confusing, but he's ill prepared to make a movie out of.

Michael Franti, the musician, goes to Iraq to try and understand the quagmire of the occupation. He sets out to meet and speak with locals, artists, writers and of course, as he puts it "especially musicians." As far as I'm concerned, this film absolutely fails as a documentary. You are constantly aware of of Franti, this isn't as much about the people as it is about Franti and his guitar, and frnakly, for the most part he comes of like a bafoon and completely out of his element.

Franti arrives in Iraq and decides to visit "dangerous places" with the help of his Iraqi driver to meet local people and talk to them. Here's where the challenge begins: trying to forget that Franti is there. But you can't! His music, and clips of him sitting like Val Kilmer sans a bottle of whiskey, at a Mike and recording his thougts by candle light, are interspersed between shots of him walking the streets of Iraq and later Palestine.

Some of the personalities interviewed are fascinating, I think the cab driver was a god send to them. However, as far as access goes, or having any real commentary or insight into the situation, Franti is a complete failure. At one point he decides that he wants to write a song in Arabic but makes the sober realization that he'll never be able to do it, so "I decided if I could write a song with one Arabic word in it, that it might break down some barriers." Oh yes, he does this, and the word of the day, ladies and gentlemen, is "Habibi". Habibi has several meanings, a plethora of them actually, and meaning changes with context and emotion. I'm very thankful to my friend Michelle who was at the movies. She's of Lebonese and Egyptian decent and found the Habibi song just as ridiculous as I did. The song features franti playing the same two chords and chanting Ha-bee-beee over and over again. According to Michelle, Habibi could mean "my dearlin" or "loved one" or "dear friend" or a few other things. After speaking a while we decided that Franti's use of Habibi completely devalues the rich cultural place that this term holds. The audience laughed with a kind of glee at the first rendition of this song. By the third or fourth time there wasn't so much as a chuckle in the audience.

Lets try and look past this, the film moves without any real direction, aimlessly through the streets, as he seeks out writers, a Christian family that tells them about their experience of living 11 days in their basement during the bombing. How dangerous it is to walk the streets and that to go to church you take a cab, to get back you take a cab, but who has money for a cab? You learn that under Saadam, the cab driver, a former school teacher, earned 1 us dollar a month, about 3,000 dinars. This is well below the UN poverty line, things haven't improved since those days except that things cost more and are in shorter supply. There are small illuminating facts, and moments of occasional levity as Franti takes you to meet a heavy/death/punk metal band in Baghdad called the black scorpions that talk about their love of noise and jam in what must be the equivalent of a sonic death chamber. You're introduced to their guitar teacher, that according to Franti, has taught pretty much all the guitar players in Baghdad. One of the members of the Black Scorpoins tells of their early days und Saadam, their teacher told them that they had to write a song for Saadam. They resisted, but then went ahead and did it. You never hear the song, but you learn quite clearly why it was important, because if they didn't "you might disappear behind the sun."

This is all well and good, and then there are the parts that I can't tollerate. Franti goes into a hospital, which is difficult to watch, you see the innocent victims of the conflict and occupation, children missing libms, burns, their faces caught in an expression of innocence tinged with knowledge that no child's eyes should ever have: horror. The images are frozen and a series of stills scrolls past the screen to remind you the viewer not to miss this, but let it soak in. Doing so decontexualizes them and turns them into a late night infomercial for the CCF. You're stomach turns and gets mad at the film makers for trying to juxtapose light hearted banter in the cafes, the constant kissing of people who meet Franti, and then this. It seems out of place, as if the film makers and franti haven't earned the right to show you this and make it stick because they spent more time on ridiculous scenes in Baghdad's first radio station with a loud mouthed US Army Seargent who thinks he's Adrian Cronauer.

After other ridiculous antics in and around Baghdad Franti and his crew depart for Palestine. He says that after seeing a country under occupation, he wants to visit a place that has been occupied for three generations. He arrives in a small Palestinian village on the boarder, on the green line, at the security wall. The village is in a very agriculturaly fertile region of the Levant. What begins is a rather simplified and very one sided explanation of the formation of the state of Israel, the green-line and the 1967 war. He tries to compress 60 someodd years of complicated political history in about 20 seconds. He then goes about interviewing people, again, meeting musicians, former Israeli soldiers, current Israeli soldiers and Palestinians and getting them to talk to one another, in what is the climax of the film. He brings villagers to the gate and has them speak to 2 Israeli soldiers. The conversation is meaningless for the most part. It is not something htat leaves you hopefull because you come to realize that not every Palestinian is a suicide bomber, and every Israeli hell bent on wipping out the Palestinians and loves to serve in the IDF. You already knew this, and you know that when that gate is locked nothing will have changed, and the only reason it was openned was for spectacle and a self serving belief in one-love. Well Mr. Franti, the 60s are over, and we are not that dimb-witted. Really, I swear to you, even if we are left of the middle, it doesn't mean we're less educated because we aren't "that left".

Everything about the Palestine sections of the film are painfully obvious. There's nothing really illuminating in the discussions, that range from a former IDF soldier who is disgusted with what he had to do, but did it, to admissions of other former soldiers who say "we treat them like shit." Well there's truth to that too. You are shown a first hand glimpse of the arduos Gaza border crossing, which is somewhat intriguing to see the abundant checkpoints and hoops that one must jump through in order to cross from here to there, it is not a place you want to be, that is for certain. The Palestinian Rappers are a much needed break from the film's attempt at education. As long as he sticks to culture and avoids politics, which is impossible in this region, then its tollerable.

Now that I've finished ripping it to shreds let me highlight a few of the good points. He does a good thing, he interacts with a people that desperately need to smile. Now if they're smilling because he's a tall man with a guitar and money is unclear, but they are smilling and he is doing that Patch Adams kind of work in a place where I think laughter can easily become an extraterrestial emotion. Franti does show a few fringe groups and peoples that you will never see elsewhere, this is really the only way he could make a movie, he has no expeirence in anything else, and its really his sweet spot. Don't want this film expecting to see a good documentary, or a documentary at all. Watch it because you need to be fed something you already know but this time with a soundtrack.

Coming up tomorrow... Occupation 101 (Palestine)another documentary, and if I can handle a double header Seeds of Doubt (Egyptian/German) feature film.

AFF Update II - Bled Number One (Algiers)

Sunday night I watched the Algerian film Bled Number One. The film is very much in the spirit of cinéma vérité, the French movement of naturalism, the rough translation means "cinema of truth" or from the Russian progenitor of the movement 'kino-pravda'. I'm not sure if you would call this an absolute or true form of cinéma vérité, but it does have the feel of a documentary and a moment in time. An examination of the actors in the film reveals a few of them with extensive filmographies so it fails on that account. Enough of the sound scape is naturalistic when examined the sharp and contrasting sound scapes of Rodolph Burger's heavy and haunting guitar. Technicalities aside, lets get to talking about the film.

The narrative revolves around Kamel, an Algerian ex-pat who returns to a small village in Algeria following a stay in France. The film's quiet moments reflect perfectly the quite and still pond-like life of the village that seems to effortlessly revolve around the seasons and practices that are as old as the stones in the hills. A cow is brought to the village and slaughtered on film. The sight is graphic in all of its realisim, not for the faint of heart, but at the same time, the way that the animal is bled, hillel or kosheric in nature, is ancient and something we just don't see here in the west where it grows on supermarket shelves. After the cow is butchered all the meat is arranged in small piles on fresh cut leafy branches. The men of the village stand around this square and pray, wishing each other and people the world over good will and praise Allah. Each man then comes forward and takes one small pile of meat and puts it into a basket as his fair share of the sacrifice. Its a beautiful scene following the grizzly death of the cow on screen.

The communal harmony of the village doesn't seem to last long. Enter a young band of ruffians who begin to terrorize the villagers with a brand of radical Islam. They go into the local cafe and declare that playing dominos is a sin, to which one of the villagers replies: "look, we're all muslims, we're not rejecting Islam, but to each their own." The zealots are pushed out of the village and a guard post is erected at the road leading into the village following a meeting to mobilize the men of the village in defense of their way of life.

Now this egalitarianism is all well and good until Louisa arrives home and the darker side of this patriarchal society is shown. Louisa, as you later find out, has left her husband and taken their young boy Yanis. She has come home because she wants to sing American Jazz and Cabaret which goes against the wishes of her family. She is reprimanded by her Mother and urged to return to her husband. Louisa has a tired and half defeated look in her eyes as she listens to her Mothers chidding and her brother Bouzid looks on, dubious and plotting. Flash forward, Bouzid is stumbling through the hills with two cases of alcohol and the zealots catch up to him and threaten to cut off his head. For a moment you think theyr'e going to do it, but they eventually let him go. The next day Louisa's husband shows up to collect her and his child. Her husband spends the evenning in the local cafe drinking and chewing tchim which I can't seem to find the meaning of. At first I thought it was betelnut, but that's more of an Asian phenomenon, not so much African. In the cafe there are discussions of politics and what people are doing about their relative situations. There's no real animosity toward the west in the discussion, there is a kind of removal, an odd sort of objectavism that you don't expect to exist. Eventually Louisa and Yanis leave. Half way down the road Louisa's husband stops the car, steps out of it, throws her suitcase to the side of the road and then drags Louisa out of the car by her hair and takes off with the boy.

Here is where Louisa's troubles begin. For every insult that befalls her there is an injury waiting to happen. When she returns home late at night alone Bouzid, her brother, takes her to her room and proceeds to beat her bloody. She has shamed the family and he exacts a kind of revenge. The interesting parallel between this and the previous Moroccon picture, Heaven's Doors is the absence of a father in all of this. The brother is effectively running the household and distributes a kind of patriarchal justice, or at least has the final say in how things will happen. The sad fact of the matter is that Louisa is exercising her freedom of dissent with her spouse and this isn't tollerated. She is ostracized by her family, shunned by her husband's family and beaten for her insolance. The scene is difficult and provacative. After this incident she is taken to the local cleric for advice and told to put her faith in Allah that the husband will come back for her. She is also told to absolve her sins by allowing seven waves to lash her in the face and then to run around the mosque seven times.

As effective outsiders, Louisa and Kamel share a strange attraction. Kamel calls Bouzid on his brutality and accuses him with a Western air of righteousness of not being a man for beating his sister. You get the sense that tragedy rolls down hill like shit and that his castration at the hands of the ruffians is ultimately paid for by Louisa. Nothing can console Louisa at the loss of her child so she leaves the village for the city and her Husband's family who tells her he has taken the child and throws her out of her own home. She is distraught, attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge and is stopped and taken to a mental institution that resembles more of a battered women's shelter than anything else. The occupants are all women, or at least we're not shown the male ward, but you get the feeling that they are all there for the same exact reason. The images and deft cinematography is reminscent of Diane Arbus's photographs from mental instituions that are simply numbered, denying her subjects a kind of human dignity in terms of a name as they jostle through the black and white images in their stark white robes in their role as patient and subject. Louisa stages a concert at the institution in a long black evenning dress contrasting the gowns most of the audience is wearing in a rather touching scene that is as odd as it is surreal. This performance is juxtaposed with two strange scenes of Rudolph Berger sitting on a hillside with an electric guitar plugged into an amp and Kamel wandering around, playing music that is the soundtrack. These two scenes come in pivotal moments in the film, one in the middle and then the very last scene after Kamel decides that he's in love with Louisa, who is now gone, and that he has to leave the village and will go so far as sneaking into Tunisia, as he's going mad and his sense of democracy and women's rights is completely at odds with the accepted pace of village life. It is Rudolph's guitar that closes out the film with a haunting melody. You never quite find out what happens to Louisa, or Kamel for that matter, and the guitar so much reminds you of Wes Anderson's inclusion of guitar players singing and "scoring" the film as part of the film that you're left to wonder if that wasn't possibly borrowed, but its effective and quixotic in its import and placement throughout the film.

All in all, a very good film, difficult to watch at times, but very good... a slice of time and life in a place that none of us will ever visit but impossible to forget even on celluloid.

AFF Update I - Heaven's Doors (Morocco)

I'm three deep into the festival and have some time to kill before number four, a double header if you will on this monday 9/11. I started off with a selection from Morocco: Heaven's Doors on Saturday night. When I purchased my tickets, for Saturday and Sunday, the cashier at the Roxie said to me "Oh, you're going for the heavy ones." Well, yes, I suppose that's just my nature and I should stick with what I know, right? So lets go in order...


Heaven's Doors

The film is a tryptich, a kind of day in the lives of three groups of people linked by tragedy and coincidence. The vignettes work themselves out in a Tarantino like chronology where you start in the middle and move forward and back through time, placing the onus on the individual to arrange the narrative in your head, in time and space, and in that Jungian sense, becoming a part of the narrative by taking an active hand in writing it.

The first vignette concerns a young man by the name of Ney who digs ditches for a living. He supports his blind mother and adolescent sister. As the sole bread winner and head of the small but tight house hold the respondibility for the survival of the family is places squarely on his shoulders. Fast money eventually seduces him when his friends introduce him to Mr. Monsour, who says "Let's be honest, we are breaking the law, but we will make lots of money." The dynamics of the family, albeit in a foreign tongue, aren't that far removed from western portrayals of poverty and the struggle for survival in an urban landscape. Ney is living in the globalized world where American Rap music dominates, the soundtrack of the film never really touches native music, but instead keeps its frenetic hand held pace with angry hip hop, youths break dancing, chase scenes, over exposed cinematography where shapes become ethereal and rooftop scapes of Ney jumping rope to stay in shape. The money flows, for a while, but like all crime sagas, the street catches up. Ney is wounded in an altercation and sent to the hospital. He recovers and seeks revenge. You know from the first five minutes that this will end badly, as you see the end, a shoot out in an apartment that leaves 3 people dead.

Flash forward, there's one survivor in the bathroom, you don't know this until the second vignette that centers around the survivor, Salim, and his mother who is in a coma after being shot, taken in by an American ex-pat art professor who is the wife of the slain father's brother. Did you follow me on that one? The man who shot Ney and that Ney went back to shoot had a brother that married an American woman, Lisa, her husband died some years back and she's been living in solitude, angry, nursing her pain with Jack Daniels. She is now the guardian of Salim and his mother as she's the only living relative. The story is somewhat contrived, Lisa, in her anger and solitude, unable to have children, is cold and distant. She sets harsh rules for the gentle Salim and expects a distraught child who walked out of the bathroom to find a scene reminiscent of the shootout at the OK Coral on his living room floor. With time and understand Lisa melts and falls in love with Salim, "Je t'aime" she says to Salim as she tells him he's the son she never had. The shadowy Mr. Monsour makes an appearance offering to take care or help out with the family by contacting the social worker, Jalil, who has a crush on Lisa. This is incredibly strange when you consider that Monsour gave Ney the address of Salim's father to exact his revenge and provided the firearms with which to carry out his plan. Eventually another relative surfaces and Lisa must give up Salim and his mother's still silent body in a painful agony of returning to solitude. She says that there was a time before Salim and then there's the time after Salim. What will become of her is uncertain, but she chooses to go home for a bit to deal with her "phantoms" and dysfunctional family back in San Francisco.

These themes aren't new, the dynamics of the Moroccon social system and how this relative is able to trum Lisa, as not true family and only the wife of a deceased relative, is intersting. What really gets you is the poetry. Between the Vignettes are poems, illuminating, foreboding, somewhat beautifully lyrical and foreshadowing of events to come. Lisa, on a trip to the beach meets a homeless woman, an old begger asking for change. She sits and like a sage from the desert gives her a bit of wisdom about solitude loosely put: some run from solitude because they aren't comfortable with it, some run to solitdue because they can't live without it. Lisa's nature is of the first variety, the old woman on the other hand is the latter. As she lives, Lisa offers her money, and she refuses, saying next time.

Vignette number three, once again, a moment is illuminated at the beginning, you see an old man in prison through the 1st 2 Vignetts, Smail, an old con, a sage in his own right who tells a younger cell mate "we are not friends, we are both her in this situation and have to rely on each other, when we get out we might be friends." The story of Smail starts with him at the slain man's apartment trying to procure a gun. He leaves and passes a young man in the hallway on the way to the elevator, Ney, the connections are now complete. Smail's story, and at this point, the whole montage, seems very much like Ameros Peros, there's the old guy that has debts to settle and a self righteousness which comes off as compelling. Smail is in a small bungalo by the beach, he funds his life with a small treasure that he stashed before going to prison for 15 years because one of his partners sold him out. We never learn the nature of the crime but you assume some kind of heist. The details of his movements read more like those of Redford in SpyGame than an Freeman in Shawshank. He acquires a fake passport, hooks up with his only dear friend left, Omar. He says goodbye to his mother, who he said, in his prison monologues, is the only one who will wait for me. His contention is that wives and children will abandon you, but the love of the mother will keep you safe. This very much parallel's Ney's mother who says "mothers hold the keys to Heaven's Doors" and that "children must obey and respect their mothers for they have the power to curse their children" in the sense of 'i brought you into this world I can take you out.'

Smail is late on the scene, his mother is dying in the hospital and he eventually burries her. With that detail of his life settled he sees the woman he lost when he went to prison, Omar's sister, a quiet and painful conversation, and also meets a sage at the beach, an old drunk who imparts similar knowledge about solitude and "being" in that Schoppenhauerian sense of being. The plot pushes forward and you soon learn that the partner who screwed Smail is Monsour and that he's going to exact his revenge before he leaves to Bangkok, before he ties up all the loose ends and settles his score. The killing field is repeated ominously through the film and between Vignettes by the sound of a gun going off and a shot of a field of dry and pressed flat grass with trees on the right side of the screen. The climax happens here and so the film ends with a long shot of Smail driving away in Monsour's BMW, his hand fondling the air outside the window. Everything is tied up, nice and neat, the curse comes true, Ney perishes, Salim melts Lisa's heart and Smail exacts revenge.

Ok, 20 minutes till I know I'm Not Alone, Michael Franti's Documentary shot in Palestine, a man, a camera and a guitar. I'm hoping that its not over the top in its one love message, I'm not sure I can handle that right now, but it might be a nice parallel to the visceral The Blood Of My Brother. Both will have reviews soon. Look for a review of Bled Number One an Algerian film that I saw on Sunday night.

Arab Film Festival

I'm going to be attending the Arab Film Festival at the Roxie and other Theatres around the bay area. If anyone wants to join me, this is the tenative list of films I'm planning to see.

Sunday 9/10
Sacred Space Denied / Out of Place-Out of Time / Yasmine's Song 2pm - Roxie SF
Bled Number One 9pm - Roxie, SF (already have tix)

Monday 9/11
The Blood of My Brother 6:30pm - Roxie, SF
I know I'm Not Alone 9pm - Roxie, SF

Wednesday 9/13
Occupation 101 9pm - Roxie, SF

Thursday 9/14
Ahlaam 9pm - Roxie, SF

Friday 9/15
Once Upon a Time in the Wadi 6pm - California Theatre, Berkeley (maybe)

Saturday 9/16
Shorts Program (Human Condition) 2pm - California Theatre, Berkeley
Waiting 5pm - California Theatre, Berkeley

Sunday 9/17
Kiss Me Not on the Eyes 4:15pm - California Theatre, Berkeley

HD Blog [35]

A continuation of Craig Perez's HD Blog...



[35]

Let us substitute
enchantment for sentiment,

re-dedicate our gifts
to spiritual realism,

scrape a palette,
point pen or brush,

prepare papyrus or parchment,
offer incense to Thoth,

the original Ancient-of-days,
Hermes-thrice-great,

let us entreat
that he, by his tau-cross,

invoke the true-magic,
lead us back to the one-truth,

let him (Wisdom),
in the light of what went before,

illuminate what came after,
re-vivify the eternal verity.

be ye wise
as asps, scorpions, as serpents.

The theme of magic and references to magical Egyptian symbols continues in section 35. The openning advises us to replace sentiment (Personal experience, one's own feeling, Sensation, physical feeling. In later use, a knowledge due to vague sensation) with enchantment (The action or process of enchanting, or of employing magic or sorcery, Alluring or overpowering charm; enraptured condition; (delusive) appearance of beaut). The rededication of gifts to spiritual realism, if you excuse the pun, is truly openning pandora's box. In the modern sense, spiritual realism is a kind of off-shoot from new age sciences. There is however an interesting kernel of truth to be explored in the idea of spiritual realism, rather than the ideas that comprise it. Spiritual realism is a departure from the imagistic nature of main stream religions, and even the sometimes overly ritualized mysticisms that connote the deeper understandings of the top level religions. Spiritual Realism is an attempt to understand spirituality in an ulinked state from the usual totemic images of spirituality, mainstream, fringe, dogmatic, pagan or otherwise. Spiritual Realism in its modern "crystal-crunchy" state didn't exist in quite the same context during HD's life, but rather the idea that gifts should be offered to the real experience of spirituality, something tangible like a glorious sunrise, or any other touchstone of divinity, is an interesting one considering that this section is bookended by magic and vipers and the preceeding section which deals with Egyptian and Greek Gods and Goddesses. To "scrape a pallet /point pen or brush" continues on this theme of spiritual realism but recasts it in the form of Art. The new divine is on the canvas and that the artist is a kind of modern priest capable of tapping into those energies historically reserved for ecclesiastical orders and what not. The artist as priest or a kind of demagogue? Is HD saying that perhaps the artist has the power to help us understand that the myth isn't here to elucidate the truth, but to show our place in the narrative in the same way that a sermond reminds us, theosophically, of our place and part in the story of Divine (granting depending on the amount of brimstone you take in your cup o church).



We are pulled back into the pantheon of Egyptian Gods as we are advised to offer Thoth incense. Thoth was one of the more important gods of the Egyptian Pantheon having helped Isis work her magic to bring Osiris back to life and aiding her son Horus in his battle against Set. He is a powerful wielder of magic and also has a female counterpart in the form of Ma'at. This is where things get a little interesting if you ask me.



Ma'at embodies the ancient Egyptian's concepts of morality, law and justice. She is the weigher of words in the underworld and a perfect simulacrum of Plato's logos. What is more astounding, when you consider that woman had nearly no status in Greek society, wasn't supposed to leave the house alone, etc. etc. was given governence in ancient Egypt over these ideal and important concepts dealing with the ethical issues. The Greeks, as HD mentions, referred to Thoth as Hermes, or rather Hermes came from the concept of Thoth, but she is going back to the source of all things. The Triology doesn't deal with the Republic so much as it is angling for the original pattern here, or as she puts it "Ancient-of-days, / Hermes-thrice-great"



The Tau-cross is an ancient symbol that predates christianity, but like all things useful, is usurped by christendom and kept around as an alternative to the latter Latin cross. The Tau-Cross is named after the Greek letter Tau and the Summerian God Tammuz, consort of Ishtar. The story of Tammuz is very Christ-like in nature having to do with a death and rebirth, and was celebrated seasonally. There's evidence that the act of ash crosses on the forehead dates back to these Summerian rituals. Tammuz's name is the symbol for the Tau cross and at the same time represents a doorway, openned and parted, a passage, a point of metamorphosis, the gate.

Tammuz the Summarian

The story of the tau cross isn't over, in its Egyptian incarnation, the tau cross is given a hoop, at once, in its completeness representing the strap of a sandal, as it in its component pieces is the feminine and masculine with the hoop as a kind of solar (sun) disc like that of of the headdress of Horus, once again, a plane between two things, an entry way, a door, a gate. The Ankh not only was a symbol of eternal life, but carrying both genders codified in its structure, was a source of creative energy. Early coptic and gnostic Christians adopted this symbol which also predates the latin Cross as a symbol for Christ's rebirth.

The next couplet is intersting when considering that the true-magic HD is referring to could be the very incarnation of pre-latin symbols for death/rebirth. Are we not looking at the book that inherantly informs the book? Is she asking us to go back further in time for a salve for modernity's ailments? Nietzsche was concerned with similar things in Birth of Tragedy where he derrided Socrates for destroying older forms of Greek Drama which to him were the true embodiment of an ecstatic worship of Dionysis and the Satyr Chorus. The desire to seek a more potent spirituality isn't new per say, it seems a constant obsession that along the way to progress, in our desire to modernize, we've lost some integral piece of knowledge and are less complete, regardless of our achievments. The next couplet that advises us to "illuminate what came after" seems to suggest that a kind of ancient lore could help us in our modenr struggle.

Lets back up a bit... HD does something really odd, in all these symbols of the feminine divine, she mentions "let him (Wisdom) / in the light of what went before", this has been bugging me. I'm not quite sure how to take this except as a jab at monotheism. The wisdom of the ancient world being lost, and at the same time HIM and wisdom being linked or rather footnoted, as a kind of wise God, perhaps one that has to answer for all things that came before. Before this age where HD is urging us to reach back and over real gifts to the true Gods? WWII is raging all around and the feminine divine is nowhere to be found, rather a masculine order of war mongers, in light of these tragic and terrible happenings, one has to question if the past can illuminate the future in light of the present set of circumstances. I'm curious how other people read this couplets.



The final couplet seems to move back to this more tangible form of magic in the shape of snakes and asps and serpents. Now biblical portrayals of the snake are generally unfavorable as in the serpent in the garden of eden, later in Deuteronomy (32:33), "Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps" a way of saying "lies", or allowing the snake to do the talking, which never tells the truth. Also in Job 20, the lie as serpent returns "Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him". However, when we consider Serqet as the scorpion woman, and that Isis is often represented as a snake, in particular, an asp, or is adorned with one, then HD is urging us to be as wise as these Goddesses of old that were at peace with the what we, in our modern civility construe as the cruelest of creatures. There's one more reading of this, when you consider that in order to resurect Osiris so that she could give birth to Horus, Isis had to learn Magic. She needed Ra's magic and in order to learn his secret name, a kind of "enchantment" she tricked a snake into biting him. When bitten Ra spoke his secret name to stay alive and so Isis learned magic. Again, a kind of dominion, usefuleness, or as The Byrds sang:

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven...

HD Blog [34]

A continuation of Craig Perez's HD Blog...



[34]

We have seen how the most amiable,
under physical stress,

become wolves, jackals,
mongrel curs;

we know further that hunger
may make hyenas of the best of us;

let us, therefore (though we do not forget
Love, the Creator,

her chariot and white doves),
entreat Hest,

Aset, Isis, the great enchantress,
in her attribute of Serqet,

the original great-mother,
who drove

harnessed scorpions
before her.

Once again we have a return to ancient Egypt in the form of the Jackal, Anubis. The jackal, a medium-sized carnivore with doglike features and a bushy tail, is widely distributed in Africa, the Middle East and India. This animal has long been the subject of superstition about death and evil spirits. The ancient Egyptians believed a jackal-headed god, Anubis, guided the dead to those who judged their souls. Such beliefs were probably encouraged by the jackal's cleverness, nocturnal habits, eerie howling and scavenging.



Anubis was charged with the measure of a person's life. When the dead reched the gates to the underworld, to the realm of Osiris, it was Anubis who would weight the heart against a feather on the scales of justive, thereby preserving the balance of good and eveil between the now and hereafter. If the person's life was just and good their heart was lighter than a feather and if it they lead a poor life then their heart would be heavier than the feather and it would be cast to Ammit, the eater of the dead.



The theme of the mongrel continues in the form of the Hyena. Hyenas have two niches in Africa. As real animals, filling the night wit their maniacal whoops and laughs, they hunt aggressively and are confident enough to terrorize lions. As creatures of myth, over the centuries they have generated fantastic tales of depravity and horror. Until modern times, reality and myth so commingled that the hyena ranked as the most misunderstood and most maligned animal in Africa.



The Hyena, in all of its misunderstanding, is still a wretched animal, but in its wretchedness gives Lions a run for their money. Lions, an essentially lazy animal in their social heirarchy, where the regal males laze around and assume first right to the kills generated by the femailes of a pride, stand as a symbol of power, at times the very image of soveriegnty and kingship. Could there be a double meaning in HD's use of Hyena here? As an animal that lives like a scavenger, the mongrel Hyena challenges the power, the best of us, when forced with untennable situations and plights, might like the Hyena take to fighting the established order and power, and we too might eat the dead in order to survive.

HD now switches gears to the subject of Doves: doves come from Cyprus, island sacred to Venus. Apuleis, but also others before him, tells us that Venus's chariot is drawn by snow-white doves, called in fact the birds of Venus because of their excessive lust. Others recall that the Greeks called the dove περιστερα, because envious Eros changed into a dove the nymph Peristera, much loved by Venus. Doves are the kissing bird, in nature, there is no season for love, love for the dove, or in actuality, the act of mounting the female, is a year round occupation for the male dove.



The dramatic shift from Jackals and symbols of the underworld to that of love as the creator is tempered by mentioning Hest. Hest could be short for Hestia and would keep with the Pan-Classical theme moving from the jackal to Hyena, perhaps also a parallel of Ammit. Hestia, the Greek Goddess of the hearth. She was also the link of the metropolis to the smaller outposts as the first thing that is necessary in establishing the home.



At this point HD takes a turn for the truly mystical, and also drawing a kind of parallel once more, a doubling, as all things in this seem to be doubled into their positive and negative forms, she invokes Isis but then invokes her as Serqet, the Scorpion Goddess of magic who protects against the venom of the scorpion and can kill with the same wrath. She is also the justified's rebirth mother, helping them be reborn in the afterlife.





Serqet has two forms in art: as a scorpion with the head of a woman and as a woman with a scorpion on her head. She is also, in her ability to welcome the dead to the land of Osiris, a female counterpart to that of Anubis, in a way they are both Janus, the two headed Roman God of passages, but a male female split.

(I am) Serqet, mistress of heaven and lady of all the gods. I have come before you (Oh) King's Great Wife, Mistress of the Two Lands, Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nefertari, Beloved of Mut, Justified Before Osiris Who Resides in Abtu (Abydos), and I have accorded you a place in the sacred land, so that you may appear gloriously in heaven like Ra.

-- Inscription in the Tomb of Nefetari, Serqet speaking to Nefertari



So in this section we are cautioned not to behave like scavengers and reminded that before monotheism dominated the land there was an older and more ecstatic cult that worshiped the great mother, the female godhead, which predates the male, and is both lustful and beautiful, violent and murderous, but equally as great as the male godhead of later monotheistic doctrines.

Arab Film Festival

I'm going to be attending the Arab Film Festival at the Roxie and other Theatres around the bay area. If anyone wants to join me, this is the tenative list of films I'm planning to see.

Saturday 9/9
Heaven's Doors - Roxie, SF (already have tix)

Sunday 9/10
Sacred Space Denied / Out of Place-Out of Time / Yasmine's Song 2pm - Roxie SF
Bled Number One 9pm - Roxie, SF (already have tix)

Monday 9/11
The Blood of My Brother 6:30pm - Roxie, SF
I know I'm Not Alone 9pm - Roxie, SF

Wednesday 9/13
Occupation 101 9pm - Roxie, SF

Thursday 9/14
Ahlaam 9pm - Roxie, SF

Friday 9/15
Once Upon a Time in the Wadi 6pm - California Theatre, Berkeley (maybe)

Saturday 9/16
Shorts Program (Human Condition) 2pm - California Theatre, Berkeley
Waiting 5pm - California Theatre, Berkeley

Sunday 9/17
Kiss Me Not on the Eyes 4:15pm - California Theatre, Berkeley

...

"It is poetry that proceeds from an obsessive desire to discover the truth and know the self and the world."

-Adonis

You should get this...

Cause it has some great stuff in there like the work of Craig Perez and if you snooze on it then you might turn into a knuckle scraping monkey itcher, and here i quote the Great L.R.S. cause he's in the book too...

Once you've had your fill of that gem, you should get Face Time cause like you should, and if you don't I'll turn you into a knuckle scraping monkey itcher!

And While you're at it... just for a few shits and giggles... you really should check out LENS at Detumescence Press cause there might be something you can print out and fold for your reading pleasure.

Heraclitus Fragments 130-139: Len's Completion and Faux Translation

Fragment 130:

There is nothing intuitive about one who
thinks he knows something about infinity

Fragment 131:

Opportunity exists for those seeking a
real purpose in all things materially real

Fragment 132:

Infinity welcomes careful drivers but shuns
cosmic misfits riding on astral buffalos

Fragment 133:

Distance decreases the need for an actual
human relation when the phone is plugged in

Fragment 134:

What we don’t know in particular is if the
question without a meaningful answer has
to be considered a meaningful question
to be asked in the first place

Fragment 135:

You can’t speak with any certainty about what
happened just before you arrived on the scene
but you’re more than likely to invent the story
now

Fragment 136:

If it takes the universe an eternity
to cool to absolute zero then it was in
absolute harmony we were given tempers

Fragment 137:

Rumor or observation will clarify that
this isn’t really an official party-line

Fragment 138:

Fire climbs down hill, while mountains reach for the sky, trees
stand stoic, rivers run long, and man, man is here
and then suddenly gone.

Fragment 139:

Free will is a risk often taken and unknown.